First

Language
Acquisition
• Before even a child goes to school, they already became an exellent language-
user, from their operating system of self-expression and communication as
they start to grow.

• The speed of acquisition generally occurs even without overt

instruction. This supports the idea that there is an innate
predisposition in the human infant to acquire language.
 Acquisition
• The process of language acquisition has some basic requirements. During the first
two or three years of develpoment, a child requires interaction with other language-
users in orderbring the general language capacity into contact with a particular
language, such as English. on

• Fron Genie (Chapter 12), a child who does not hear or is not allowed to use
language will learn no language.
• We have also identified the importance of cultural transmission (Chapter 2) meaning
that the particular language a child learns is not genrally inherited, but is acquired in
a partcular language-using environment.

on

• (Moskowitz, 1991) demonstrated from the case of two deaf parents introducing
their normal-hearing son to radio and television, wherein he concluded that the
crucial requirement in learning how to communicate using a ceratin language is
not just the environmental factors but the interaction with others via language.
 Input
• Human infants are certainly helped in their language acquisition by the
typical behavior of older children and adults in the home environment who
provide language examples, or input, for the child.

• Parents spends a lot of time interacting with a young child incorportes a lot of
forms associated with “baby talk”. These are either simplified words (tummy,
nana) or alternative forms, with repeated simple sounds and syllables, for thing
in the child’s environment (choo-choo, poo-poo, pee-pee,wa-wa).
 CAREGIVER SPEECH
• It’s a type of conversational structure that seems to assign an interactive role
to the young child even before he or she becomes a speaking participant.

• It characterized by simple sentence structures and a lot of repetiton and

paraphrasing, with reference largely restricted to the here and now. if the child
is indeed in the process of working out a system of putting sounds and words
together, then these simplified models produced by the interacting adult may
serve as good clues to the basic structural organization involved.
 The Acquisition Schedule

• All normal children develop language at similar rates, similar to motor skill
development and brain maturation, as they engage in similar physical activities
like sitting, crawling, standing, and walking.
 The Acquisition Schedule
• It is possible to see the child's early years as a time when they have the
biological ability to recognize certain elements of language input. Long before
children begin to talk, they have been actively processing what they hear. We
can identify what very young children are paying attention to by the way they
increase or decrease "sucking behavior" in response to speech sounds or turn
their heads in the direction of those sounds. At one month, an infant can tell the
difference between [ba] and [pa]. In the first three months, the infant begins to
make distinct vocalizations and smiles as a reaction to faces that speak.
 COOING
• The earliest use of speech-like sounds has been described as cooing. During the
first few months of life, the child gradually becomes capable of producing
sequences of vowel-like sounds, particularly high vowels similar to [i] and [u].
 COOING
• By four months of age, the developing ability to bring the back of the tongue
into regular contact with the back of the palate allows the infant to create sounds
similar to the velar consonants [k] and [g], hence the common description as
"cooing" or "gooing" for this type of production. Speech perception studies have
shown that by the time they are five months old, babies can already hear the
difference between the vowels [i] and [a] and discriminate between syllables
like [ba] and [ga].
 BABBLING
• Between six and eight months, the child is sitting up and producing a number of
different vowels and consonants, as well as combination such as ba-ba-ba and
ga-ga-ga.

• Around nine to ten months, there are recognizable intonation patterns to the
consonant and vowel, the combinations such as ba-ba-da-da. Nasal sounds also
become more common and certain syllable sequences such as ma-ma-ma and
da-da-da, are inevitably by parents as versions of "mama" and "dada" and
repeated back to the child.
 BABBLING
• During the tenth and eleven months, characterized by more complex syllable
combinations (ma-da-ga-ba), a lot of sound-play and attempted imitations. This
"pre language" use of sound provides the child with some experience of the
social role of speech.

• By the time most children are twelve months old, they are also producing
distinct gestures, such as pointing with an outstretched hand or holding out an
object toward the caregiver, that accompany their vocalizations.
 BABBLING
• Child language researchers certainly report very carefully on the age of any
child whose language they study. They are also careful to point out that there is
substantial variation among children in terms of the age at which particular
features of linguistic development occur.
 THE ONE-WORD STAGE
Between twelve and eighteen months, children enter a crucial stage of language
development known as the one-word stage.

WHAT IS THE ONE- WORD STAGE?

• Characterized by the production of single- unit utterances.
• Children use single terms for objects such as “milk”, “cookie”, “cat”, and
“spoon”.
• These simple terms are typically pronounced [pun].
 HOLOPHRASTIC STAGE
Term used to describe an utterance that could be a word, phrase or sentence.

Example:
[Asae] may indicate “What’s that?” in certain circumstances.
 EXTENDING LANGUAGE USE
Holopharstic utterances may also be used in circumsances suggesting the child is
extending their language use.

Example:
Naming an empty bed as belonging to a sister who usually sleeps there.
 DEVELOPMENT MILESTONE
• At this stage, children are starting to seperate words but are not yet ready to
form complex phrases.
• Physical development such as walking and navigating stairs, may influence
language acquisition.
 IN CONCLUSION
• The one-word stage is a crucial period in language development.
• It marks the beginning of children’s ability to express themselves using single
terms, laying the foundation for future language skills.
• Understanding this stage hepls caregivers and educators support language
development in young children.
 THE TWO-WORD STAGE
WHAT IS THE TWO-WORD STAGE?

The two-word stage is the third major period in the language acquisition of
children.
 THE TWO-WORD STAGE: AGE
• RANGE
It can begin around eighteen to twenty months, as the child’s vocabulary moves
beyond fifty words.
• Around two years old, a variety of combinations, similar to baby chair, mommy
eat, cat bad wil usually have appeared.
• The sentences produced at this stage consist primarily of nouns and verbs and
despite the lack of function words, toddlers tend to use the correct grammatical
sequence. These word combinations often follow a simple pattern, such as noun
+ verb or adjective + noun.
For example: big boat hit ball more milk
doggie bark mama dress shoe off
 THE TWO-WORD STAGE: AGE
• RANGE
Moreover, toddlers will enter this period with around 50 words in their
vocabulary but by 24 months they may know over 200 or 300 words , he or she
will be capable of understanding five times as many.
• Whatever it is that the child actually intends to communicate through such
expressions, the significant functional consequences are that the adults or, more
often, older children behave as if communication is taking place.
• This stage marks an exciting leap in a child’s ability to communicate and
understand language that allows them to communicate more effectively with
others.
 TELEGRAPHIC STAGE
Toddlers from 2 and a half years old begins to produce large number of utterances. It
can be classified as "multiple word speech". They only use the most crucial words in
their sentences , often composed of a noun and a verb. This form of communication is
simplified and often disregard grammatical function words and inflectional endings,
focusing on key content words to express their ideas.

Example
• Cat drink milk • I hungry
- The cat is drinking a milk -I am hungry
ACQUISITION PROCESS
 LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION
Similar evidence against 'imitation' as the major source of the child's speech
production comes from studies of the structures used by young children.
They may repeat words or phrases, but not the sentence structures.

Ex.: The dogs are hungry ~ dog hungry The owls who eat candy run fast ~
owl eat a candy and he run fast.
 LEARNING THROUGH
CORRECTION
It is also unlikely that adult "correction" are very effective determiner of how
the child speaks. Even when the correction is attempted in a subtle manner,
the child will continue to use a personally constructed form, despite adult's
repetition of what the correct form should be. Note that in the following
dialog (from Cazden,1972) the child, a four-year old, is neither imitating the
adult's speech nor accepting the adult's correction.
 LEARNING THROUGH
CORRECTION
Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you
say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes Mother: What did you say she
did? Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you say
she held them tightly? Child: No, she holded them loosely.

One factor that seems to be important in the child's acquisition process is the use
of sound and combinations, either in interaction with others or in word play,
alone. Word play seems to be an importante element in the development of the
child's linguistic repertoire.
 LEARNING THROUGH
CORRECTION
Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you
say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes Mother: What did you say she
did? Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Mother: Did you say
she held them tightly? Child: No, she holded them loosely.

One factor that seems to be important in the child's acquisition process is the use
of sound and combinations, either in interaction with others or in word play,
alone. Word play seems to be an importante element in the development of the
child's linguistic repertoire.
Developing Morphology
 Developing Morphology

By the time a child is two and a half years old, he/she is going beyond
telegraphic speech forms and incorporating inflectional and functional
morphemes.

The first to appear is the –ing form followed by the prepositions in

and on, in either order.
Developing Morphology

Forming Questions
Negatives
Developing
Forming Questions
Negatives
Syntax
 Developing Syntax

Forming Questions Forming Negatives

 Forming Questions

Stage 1

-The child's first stage has two procedures. Simply add the wh-form (Where) to the
beginning of the expression.

Example: Where Kitty?

-Or utter the expression with a rise in intonation toward the end.

Example: Sit Chair?

 Forming Questions

Stage 2
-In the second stage, more complex expression can be formed but the rising
intonation strategy continues to be used.

Example: You want eat?

-It is noticeable that more wh-forms, such as What and Why come into use

Example: Why you smiling?

 Forming Questions

Stage 3
-In the Third stage, the change in position of the auxiliary verb in English questions
called inversion, becomes evident in the Child's speech.

Example: "I can have...?" to "Can I have...?"

-Some children may still prefer to form wh-questions without the type of structure
found in adult speech.

-They tend to say, "Why kitty can't do it?"instead of "Why can't kitty do it?"
 Forming Negatives

Stage 1
In the case of negatives, Stage 1 involves a simple strategy of putting No or Not at the
beginning.

Stage 2
In the second stage, the additional negative forms don’t and can’t appear and are
increasingly used in front of the verb rather than the beginning of the utterance.
 Forming Negatives

Stage 3
The third stage incorporates other auxiliary forms such as don’t and can’t while the
typical Stage 1 disappear. A very late acquisition is the negative form isn’t, with the result
that some Stage 2 forms continued to be used for quite a long time.
Developing
Forming Questions
Negatives
Semantics
 Developing Morphology
Overextension

-the child’s use of his limited linguistic knowledge in order to refer to the words that
he has “not fully developed mapping of linguistic and cognitive systems.

-overextending yhe meaning lof a word on the basis of similarities of shape, sound,
size, and, to a lesser extent, movement and texture.

Example: The word ball is extended to signify similar forms, such as a rock, moon,
light bulb, and doorknob.
-One interesting feature of the young child’s semantics is the way certain lexical
relations are treated.

-Hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within another

term, its hypernymy.

-Hyponymy is sometimes referred to as meaning inclusion.

Example: pigeon, crow, eagle, and seagull are all hyponyms of bird which is their
hypernym. In turn, bird is one of the hyponym of animal.
Later Developments
Acquiring Antonymous Relations
• Some types of antonymous relations are acquired fairly late (after the
age of five).
• Study: Kindergarten children showed difficulty understanding
distinctions like "more" and "less".
• Challenges with pairs like before/after and buy/sell are also common.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX STRUCTURES
• Ability to produce complex structures and extended discourse
develops later.
• Despite ongoing language acquisition, children typically master
basic language by age five.
LATER DEVELOPMENT
Transition to Second Language Learning
• By age five, children become accomplished users of their first
language.
• Many begin learning a second language later in life. - Why is second
language acquisition challenging despite mastering the first language?

Conclusion - Exploring the complexities of second language acquisition

in Chapter 14.